The new recruits all said that they were looking forward to the opportunities on offer to them at CUH, as they develop their nursing careers in ways not possible back home. Leaving home was not an easy decision to make, as Ines Boaventura, who will be working in the neurosciences department explains:

“It’s a huge decision, to completely change your whole life like this. You have to leave your friends and family to come somewhere new, but this is the choice that I made, for a better career with more opportunities.

“In Portugal, nurses are just nurses, there’s not really any room to develop or progress into a speciality.”

Jose and Inês Caeiro met and worked together at the Hospital Santa Maria Maior in Barcelos, north-west Portugal, before deciding to move themselves and their two young children to Cambridge.

Jose said: “The opportunities to build on what we as nurses know aren’t there in Portugal, although our patients always tell us how much they appreciate our work, but here nurses are much more respected by everyone.”

Inês added: “The schools in Portugal are very good, but I was confident that we would be able to find the same for our children here.”

Many of the new nurses pointed out how fortunate nurses at Addenbrooke’s were to be so well supported in their work, and were very excited about the possibility of specialising.

Christina Martins will be joining the intermediate dependency area (IDA), and is also in the process of relocating her family. She said: “My husband and children, three and six year old, will be joining me in September from our Portuguese home in Portimão near the Algarve.

“I started thinking about the move around five years ago, and felt that now was the best time to move, to give my children the best possible start at school.”

Cambridge University Hospitals is a world-renowned specialist centre in areas including neurosciences, maternity care, multi-organ transplant, cancer and major trauma care. The Trust is currently recruiting nurses and healthcare assistants across its divisions.

For more information on working as a nurse at CUH, visit www.cuh.org.uk/nursing